Trust me on this one – it’s a winner. What’s the phrase? Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Chicken thighs braised in red wine and other good aromatics, then a little bit of cocoa powder plus red wine vinegar added in at the end.

This is another recipe from David Lebovitz’s cookbook, My Paris Kitchen. The recipe title – I guess because of his widely known English-speaking fans, he calls it Chicken in Red Wine Sauce rather than the traditional French way, Coq au Vin. I already have a few recipes here on this blog for coq au vin (two, I think), but this is without a doubt, the best one. I made this recently using chicken thighs. The original recipe calls for a whole chicken, but I rarely use one of those, preferring the thighs if I’m going to use chicken parts.

Ideally this recipe calls for marinating the chicken in the red wine (a whole bottle), onion, carrot, ground cloves, bay leaves and thyme, for 2 days. TWO DAYS! I didn’t read the recipe in time – so mine marinated a total of 2 hours. There is a lot of bacon in this, which gives the dish lots of flavor. The thighs (skin on, bone in) were browned on both sides in olive oil and butter, removed, then the bacon was added along with mushrooms, then everything else goes in, chicken on top, then the marinade (wine) is poured in. It’s brought to a simmer and gently cooked for about an hour. Then I added in frozen (but defrosted) pearl onions. And simmered for another 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, we’d had lots of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner, so we used the remaining as the pillow to put the chicken and sauce on. The original recipe added just 1 T of flour (as a thickener) but mine needed more – probably about 1/4 cup. Then, the flavor from unsweetened cocoa powder and red wine vinegar adds such a delicious punch to the sauce at the last few minutes. You cannot tell there is cocoa in the sauce. Not at all. Three of us tried to detect it – no. You’ve just got to make this. If you don’t want mashed potatoes, try noodles (pappardelle?) instead. Or mashed cauliflower made to resemble mashed potatoes.

What’s GOOD: the umami flavors in this are just over the top wonderful. I can’t say enough superlatives to describe the rich, flavorful sauce. I have ample sauce leftover (over and above what I’ll serve with the leftover chicken) and think I’ll make a soup with some of it. The recipe is not difficult, although it does take some chopping and sauteing here and there, but once it simmers, it’s pretty easy.

What’s NOT: only that you’re supposed to start this 1-2 days ahead to marinate the chicken. I didn’t, just 2 hours for me, but marinating does enhance the flavors.

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How much do I love these tender, sweet cookie moments? Nothing quite like madeleines with a hot cup of coffee. Paris, anyone?

Just recently I drove to Northern California to spend a few days with my family there (daughter Dana, her two adult kids, Taylor [the one who lived with me a couple of years ago while she was in nursing school] and Logan, his wife Mary, their two children, and Dana’s ex, Todd.)

While I was there Taylor hosted a dinner gathering one evening at her home and I was invited to attend. It was her “cookbook club,” Last year soon after they formed the group, they chose to cook recipes from my blog rather than from a cookbook. All of her cookbook club friends know me, sort of. They all hugged me and were happy I was able to join them. Taylor asked me for recommendations of a French cookbook (Ina Garten? Dorie Greenspan?) and she and I chose David Lebovitz’s book, My Paris Kitchen, and she called the event a French-giving. Cute, huh? There were 10 of us there and everyone brought a dish. Taylor made a French apple cake (Gateau Invisible it’s called, recipe to come, but it’s not from that cookbook, but from Cook’s Illustrated) that I just loved. Obviously, I made madeleines. I have a silicone madeleine pan, so took it with me when I drove north.

The cookie batter is pretty darned easy to do – the usual cookie suspects – sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, baking powder and butter. The chemistry of it makes a kind of sponge cake type soft cookie, but in the unique madeleine pan, they come out like little puffy leaves. The batter does need to rest in two different times, so give yourself ample hours from start to finish. Just remember: madeleines are best eaten warm, or at least the same day you bake them.

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When Fall rolls around I seem to crave different foods. More comfort foods like meatloaf, pumpkin pie, and in this case it was sausages with cabbage, onions and a new addition, apples.

It’s a funny thing about cravings . . . for me they can be for something sweet like a chocolate chip cookie. It can be for a tall glass of iced tea. Maybe a mint julep? For me when October rolls around, and up through Christmas my cravings are for a certain variety of foods. Pumpkin may be top of the list, and I made the pumpkin bars with cream cheese icing. Gave most of it away so I wouldn’t eat it. But it satisfied the craving. At the moment I write this, I’m craving a biscotti. I don’t have any, so would have to make some, and perhaps I will. I try to “talk down” cravings for sweets – and carbs – and sometimes that works. It’s been several days I’ve been craving a cookie or a biscotti and so far I haven’t succumbed to making some. I’ll probably make Bishop’s Bread next month, because I love it so much. And maybe some other Christmas cookies. If I make them, guess who eats them? I’ll try to talk down that craving if I can!

But a few weeks ago my mouth was watering thinking about sausages and onions. One time, decades ago, my DH Dave and I were in Germany or Austria and we had lunch at a very nice country restaurant and we ordered bratwurst with onions served on a pillowy mound of buttery mashed potatoes. I’ve never, ever, forgotten that meal. It was so sublime. I would have licked the plate if I could have!

The recipe I made started out with one from Milk Street. But, before I tell you about that I need to take a detour to mention guanciale.

Guanciale is an Italian salt-cured meat product prepared from pork jowl or cheeks. Its name is derived from guancia, meaning ‘cheek’. Its rendered fat gives flavor to and thickens the sauce of pasta dishes. Guanciale is usually rubbed with just salt and ground black pepper by cooks in Rome, but some producers use other spices, herbs, peperoncino or red pepper, and sometimes garlic. It is cured for three weeks or until it loses approximately 30% of its original weight. Its flavor is stronger than that of other pork products, such as pancetta, and its texture is more delicate. When cooked, the fat typically melts away. . . . [from Wikipedia]

For the longest time guanciale wasn’t available in the U.S. (banned by the FDA, probably because it’s an uncooked/uncured meat). But now you can. What I bought was already chopped up finely. Guanciale looks kind of like bacon, but because it’s from the cheek, it has a different shape than bacon, shorter and usually wider. Most I’ve seen is more fat-laden than bacon, but not always, as you can see from the photo. The flavor is different too – it’s not smoked as so many of our pork belly products are.

Even though Guanciale is an Italian product, I used it in this recipe anyway. You could substitute pancetta, or a small amount of bacon too. In any case I rendered the guanciale with the onion and fennel, then added the garlic, apples, seasonings and lastly the cabbage. The sausages are nestled into this mixture, then some water is added and the sausages will simmer (steam, really), once covered for about 10-15 minutes. Lastly, after removing the sausages, cider vinegar is added. It’s amazing to me how flavorful that little dash of vinegar is to the finished dish. Do serve the dish with some Dijon mustard. You could use cured sausages in this (like Kielbasa) if you prefer, just chop them up and let them warm through. Add them in the last few minutes before serving.

If I weren’t watching carbs I’d definitely serve this with mashed potatoes. I made this dish a week or two later and DID make the mashed potatoes.

What’s GOOD: every morsel of this was delicious. Unctuous really. You can adapt the various veggies, more or less, as it’s quite forgiving.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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An easy preparation, a quick entree – green onions, garlic, fresh ginger, toasted sesame oil and some butter. Then a little parsley and chives sprinkled on top.

Can I just say, my freezer is a mess. Not messy, but it’s stuffed with bits of this and that, little blobs of something, unmarked (don’t we always think we’ll remember what all those little things are?). And I found a package of cod fillets hidden on a bottom shelf. I think they’d been there for a couple of years. Sealed well in plastic pouches, it was easy to defrost. I had green onions, fresh ginger, butter, garlic, so I was set. The recipe was one I found at Bon Appetit some years ago. Back when accessing recipes there was free. I made a few alterations, but not enough to change the flavor profile much, if any. I added an herb topping when serving, and I added some sherry wine to the pan during the sauce preparation.

The fish was patted dry with a paper towel (important), then added to a medium-hot skillet after I’d dusted one side with some cornstarch. Ideally the fish won’t stick if you leave it alone while the crust develops. I wasn’t totally successful with that because I didn’t use a nonstick skillet as the recipe suggested, but you can see the golden browning at the right bottom edge. The recipe is all about the sauce or the topping, however. The original recipe had you make the sauce in a separate pan, but I didn’t think that was necessary. I scraped out the bits of fish stuck to the pan surface first, then made the sauce so I only dirtied one skillet. The sauce takes no time at all and you do want the green onions to still have some raw texture.

What’s GOOD: an easy and quick entree to make in less than 30 minutes. I liked the texture of the sauce and the umami of the sherry wine and the toasted sesame oil.

What’s NOT: not exactly a low-cal dish as it has not only EVOO, but butter and sesame oil in it. But cod needs help to make it tasty!

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A really tasty way to make Brussels sprouts, for a family meal or it’s fancy enough for company too.

For the first decade or so of my life my mother only prepared Brussels sprouts simmered in water with salt and pepper. They were cabbage-funky and acidic and way overcooked, and not at all pleasant to eat. Then I discovered marinating them in a kind of a salad dressing, served cold. I made them that way for years. Then I discovered roasting. That was a wow moment. I’ve got lots of recipes for Brussels sprouts here on my blog, and oh, gosh, these (above) are so good.

After trimming and prepping the Brussels sprouts and onions, toss them in a mustard vinaigrette kind of mixture and roast them for about 12 minutes, maybe 13, possibly 14, and they’re done. So quick. Then you squeeze some lemon juice over the top and add a few dashes of the canned Parmesan cheese.

Rarely do I use that canned Parm, but yes, I do keep it in my frig. In this case, that very finely crumbled dry Parm was perfect for sprinkling over the Brussels sprouts. Could you use the real stuff? Of course, but I thought using the canned stuff was a better texture to stick to the roasted veggies. Canned Parm is quite salty, so be careful adding any additional salt to these. You can always add some at the end when you taste them for seasonings.

That constituted my dinner. Often I eat veggies for dinner when I’m tired of a green salad. And they were very satisfying and filling.

What’s GOOD: every morsel of these was delicious. The sweetness of the onions, the tang of the mustard vinaigrette, and the umami of the Parm. Altogether wonderful.

What’s NOT: nary a thing. Did take about 30 minutes, start to finish, prepping, heating the oven and then roasting them. Because they’re roasted at such a high temp, they were done in a jiffy.

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Extra moist pumpkin cake – you can make this in a larger pan and it will serve about 30, or in a 9×13 and serve a taller cake portion for about 15-20. 

Every year I crave this cake (or bar). Many years ago when daughter Sara came to live with her dad and me (she’s technically my step-daughter, though I call her my daughter) at age 15 (this would have been in the mid 1980s), she made these and I was hooked. It was her mom’s recipe. I’ve been making them ever since. Sara’s mom passed away some years ago, so I asked Sara if it would be okay to post the recipe on the blog. She agreed.

In talking with Sara this morning, she tells me there never were chocolate chips in the cake. Hmm. Maybe I added them. Not sure, since it’s been over 30 years that I’ve been making them. You can add them, or not! The recipe calls for a 10″ x 15″ pan. Many of you won’t have that size. I bought one years ago that I certainly don’t use often, but when you want to make this recipe, to serve a bunch of people, use it. This time I made it in the 9×13 pan, so it’s more like a cake height than a cake-bar height.

The cake is easy to make – the batter contains a full can of pumpkin (I always use Libby’s because it’s the standard I prefer) and uses oil instead of butter. It makes such a moist cake, and it keeps for days and days because of that ingredient. Once baked and cooled (important) it’s topped with a cream cheese frosting and then sprinkled with some walnuts. They’re supposed to be toasted walnuts – I was lazy and just chopped up regular walnuts. This cake is very forgiving. You need to refrigerate the cake (because of the cream cheese in the icing), so when serving it, let the cake sit out at room temp for about 10 minutes if you have the time. The cake travels well.

What’s GOOD: every possible thing is good about this cake. The pumpkin flavor, the walnuts on top, the icing, all yummy. Since I’ve been making it for over 30  years, trust me, it’s a keeper.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of, other than it does take 2-3 hours start to finish.

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Who hasn’t had bruschetta? I’m sure all of you have made it at one time or another. What’s different here is mascarpone.

You know it’s pronounced broo-sketta right? When my friend Linda and I were in Italy we were corrected more than once because we’d forget and use the Americanized pronunciation. Bad on us! Linda and I ordered it, we think, about 10 times in various restaurants, and in one place we returned to have another meal there, so had it twice because it was the best we had. What was different about it was a smear of a spreadable cheese on top of the toasted bread. Not only did it add a lovely rich, creamy flavor to the bites, but it also kept the juices from oozing down through the holes in the bread. We supposed it was mascarpone. It wasn’t cream cheese we were certain, it didn’t have that texture or flavor. It was softer and creamier.

We analyzed what was on the bread –  tomatoes, of course. And the tomatoes were just so sweet and juicy there. And it was October, but I think there were still good tomatoes available. The tomatoes were chopped, perhaps a little bigger than mine above, but close to it. There was some minced red onion, some dried herbs, we could see, and a few places added some grated Parm. Not on top, but mixed into the tomatoes. We couldn’t see garlic in it, but perhaps they used garlic powder. Since the tomatoes are a raw mixture, Linda and I have wondered if it’s not traditional to add garlic. We couldn’t really taste it, but maybe. Also, we noticed that there wasn’t ever any vinegar in the tomato mixture. That was surprising as I would have thought it would be a vinaigrette. Nope. Just EVOO.

Once home, I was craving some more bruschetta, so I bought a mini French baguette, sliced it up and used my toastapane to give the slices some color. You don’t want to toast the bread so it’s all crispy. Just a little color on the edges, but soft bread on the interior. You might not have one of these contraptions, so just use your toaster oven. If you’re dying to have one of these they are available here at an Italian store. I think Joanne Weir offered them for sale at one time on her website and I grabbed one. Have had it for a long time. She explains how to use a toastapane on her website. Don’t ever wash it, just rap it against the kitchen sink to get out any crumbs. You cannot use a toastapane on an electric stove – it relies on a gas element only.

Making the tomato mixture was just a little of this and that – I’m guesstimating on the recipe below. I’ve made it twice and loved it first to the last bite. Adjust the proportions of herbs or onion, or mascarpone too. Making bruschetta isn’t an exact science, in other words. I made the mixture, made the bruschetta, and saved the oil/herb mixture and used it another time two days later. Whatever you do, don’t throw out the little marinade – use it in salad dressing or on veggies. Lots of good flavor.

What’s GOOD: love the texture, the little bit of crisp on the bread, the really creamy mascarpone, then the balanced acidity of the tomatoes, the EVOO even, the basil (yum) and even the red onion. Each bruschetta is two bites, maybe one if you want to. Ha!

What’s NOT: only that you do need to make the time to toast the bread, but making the tomato mixture is quite simple.

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My friend Linda T and me in Florence. In the background far right the orange dome of the Duomo cathedral, the Arno river, and the Ponte Vecchio bridge, taken from the Piazzale Michelangelo.

My good friend Linda T, who has a number of recipes on my blog, and I decided about 18 months ago that we’d go to Italy for a couple of weeks this year. Because we’re both pretty old ladies, we decided to stay in one place, and Linda found a perfect Airbnb within throwing distance of the famous cathedral, the Duomo of Florence. Linda celebrated her 80th birthday while we were there, and I’m 84. Our apartment couldn’t have been a more ideal location to get to everything in the city. To the Arno (the river), to the Ponte Vecchio (the famous bridge), to the Uffizi (the marvelous museum), the Medici Chapels (where all the Medici men – princes – are entombed), shopping, and most of all, restaurants. Linda and I are both foodies of the first order, so restaurants featured large in our planning! And oh, did we walk, and walk and walk!

Italians eat late. That’s just the culture. Most restaurants don’t open for dinner until 7:30 pm. We kept to our home-time schedules, rising at about 7, and going to bed about 10, so eating a big dinner late was not something we wanted to do. We ate our main meal at lunchtime and then had leftovers or snacks (fruit and cheese) in our apartment in the evening with a glass of wine. Our apartment had a small but functional kitchen, including a microwave, oven and cooktop (that we couldn’t turn on until our last day). Finally I went online to the Neff brand website and read the manual. That worked! The Airbnb owner didn’t have a binder in the apartment about how to operate the A/C, the heat, the washer, the dryer (thankfully we had those two appliances as we did many loads of laundry), the oven, stovetop and the wi-fi. Each time we had to contact him through WhatsApp to ask about how to operate things.

This bruschetta was the best we had, at Trattoria Za’Za. The toasted bread was slathered with – we think – mascarpone, then the chopped tomatoes and red onion in an herb enhanced olive oil spooned on top. 

Linda did a tremendous amount of research about restaurants, and we had some fabulous meals. We sampled one of Florence’s signature pastas, a pear ravioli (only slightly sweet, it really is a savory dish, not dessert, see picture below). We had bruschetta about 10 times, I think. We had prosciutto and melon (and oh my, the melons were so sweet and juicy) frequently. We savored osso bucco (veal shanks) twice. Veal is a staple on Italian menus. We learned (because a nice waiter subtly shook his head “no” when we were about to order fish) that all the fish served in Florence is frozen. The sea is a couple hundred miles away, and they just don’t bring fresh fish that far inland. So, we had fish just once (my sea bass was awful, soft and mushy) before we learned that lesson! Steak, Florentine beef, is king in Florence, and we saw lots of it being ordered by hungry men. Linda ordered pasta carbonara once – I had a taste – so tender and tasty – but very rich.

There’s the pear ravioli in a cream sauce from 4Leoni (restaurant) with asparagus. Then a little radicchio sprinkled on top. Along with chardonnay for Linda and a rose for me. In this instance, the pasta was in the shape of purses and there were 8 in the bowl, 4 for each of us. We shared lots of our meals so we could taste more things.

Chicken is a rarity on Florentine menus. Not sure why as chickens were hanging in the meat markets we visited, but they just don’t serve them at restaurants. We did have it, thinly pounded chicken breast fillets in a lemon sauce. We drank prosecco almost every day. We also ordered a bellini twice. We had a beautiful wine shop across the street from our apartment, and Paolo was so helpful in choosing wine for us to drink in our apartment, and for a couple of gifts. Oh, and how could I forget gelato. Yes, we had it about 3-4 times.

What were the highlights of our trip?

1. The Vasari Corridor. Way back in the 1400s the current reigning Medici decided to have a corridor built (designed and built by Corridoio Vasariano), an enclosed walkway, across the top (like a 2nd floor) on one side of the 10-20 stores that line the bridge over the Arno, from his home at the Pitti Palace, to the government buildings on the north side of the river. The explanation was that he didn’t choose to mix with the local peasants crossing the bridge itself, and he preferred to get there without having an armed guard escort him. Money wasn’t a problem, so he built a kind of circuitous set of hallways from one side of the river to the other. Attached to some of the buildings and then the main part built on top. It isn’t a direct path, hence the corridor had to jig-jog on both sides. Back in the day, the hallways were lined with the Medici’s trove of art (utterly priceless). Now that art is hanging in the Uffizi Galleries. We learned another story – prior to World War II, Hitler visited Florence, and the Medicis wined and dined him, and included a walk across the Vasari Corridor. Because war was in the offing, the Medicis had a beautiful set of expansive windows built in the main hallway over the bridge (prior to Hitler’s visit) at the center of the corridor to give a panoramic view of the Arno, and Hitler was quite taken with it. Fortunately for Florence, when Hitler declared war on Italy he told his staff to not bomb the Ponte Vecchio bridge. The other bridges were bombed, but not the Ponte Vecchio.
   

   Tam & John’s kitchen – read below. So spacious and I fell in love with the wall tile.

    2. A visit with friends who live in Fiesole (fee-ehz-oh-leh), about 5-7 miles outside of Florence. They’re renovating an old home there. Tam was a coxswain back in the 80s when my son Powell was rowing crew – they’ve stayed friends all these years. Last year when I visited Lucca, Italy, with my daughter, daughter-in-law and her mom, Tam, her husband John and their daughter Elanor trained over to Lucca to have lunch with us. This trip, Linda and I spent a Sunday with them, having an in-depth tour of their gorgeous villa, then lunch in Fiesole, then gelato. John ever so kindly drove into Florence to pick us up and drive back up the hill to Fiesole, and returned us to the city later in the day. He also picked us up on our last Monday morning at 7 am to drive us to the airport for our return flight. I’ll just say, taxis were problematical during our visit. When you consider the petrol in Europe is about $13/gallon, having someone drive you anywhere is quite a gift.

   3. The dome of the cathedral. You might wonder why I’d say that – a dome?, but prior to the trip Linda and I both read a book called Brunelleschi’s Dome, written by Ross King. Although some of the book is quite technical (architectural language) it’s a fascinating account of Filippo Brunelleschi’s innovative design for the dome. In the 1400s no one had constructed such a dome that high and without a wood framework underneath to support it while the mortar dried. He did, and was ridiculed and laughed at, that the expensive dome would never stand, would crumble in a year. It’s now 600 years later and it’s still standing. The book elaborated about lots of the design of the dome and cathedral and the bronze doors that took decades to form. Anyway, having read that book I never tired of looking at the dome.

That’s enough about Florence for today. I’ll write another post with more photos in a few days.

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That’s me – in Florence, Italy a couple of days ago. My friend Linda and I spent two weeks in that magical city. 

Have just gotten home from this trip to Italy. Suffering from jet lag (who doesn’t?). I haven’t begun to sort all the photos (way too many plates of food), but there will be stories coming up. And pictures. Stay tuned. The photo above was taken at Trattoria Zaza, a lovely upscale and extremely trendy restaurant in the heart of the city, adjacent to the Mercato Centrale, Florence’s ubiquitous central food and produce market. We liked it so much we ate at ZaZa twice.

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Lovely for a hot summer’s evening. Ideally make it ahead (overnight). It’s served cold.

Despite it being officially “fall” we’re still having very warm temps here in SoCal. My cousin Gary and his girlfriend Vici were visiting me (we went to see the Terracotta Warriors that were on loan at the Bowers Museum near where I live – amazing, by the way).

Did I start this the night before? Nope. Forgot. But that’s fine – I haven’t had it that way, but I allowed the sauce to mellow for awhile in the frig and I did make it enough ahead that the salmon had cooled to room temp. I served it with some baby bok choy (see in photo). Maybe a salad would have been better. This recipe comes from Marian Burros – maybe only people of a certain age will remember her (she has several cookbooks to her name, I believe). You can find the recipe at the New York Times. Yes, I have a subscription at the moment.

Anyway, what’s unique in this is that you put the salmon into the cold pan (preferably a pan that’s just big enough to hold the salmon and all the poaching liquid – it does need to have high enough sides to contain the liquid). Then you add the wine and broth. And then, you place a layer of waxed paper (or parchment) – cut to fit – on top of the fish. Then a lid is put on top of that while the fish gently simmers.

Meanwhile I prepped the bok choy and had it ready. Once the fish had cooked I removed it from the pan and just let it cool on a plate while I prepared the bok choy (added a jot of sesame oil to the water, then lemon juice at the end). I cooked it in the same pan I’d used for the salmon (easy cleanup!).

I’d made the mayo in the food processor – I must confess – I just put all the ingredients in and whizzed it up. I did flash blanch the green leaves, though (spinach and parsley) and drain/dried them on a black kitchen towel. Anyway, the mayo was a cinch to make, and oh so very tasty. Garlic is prominent. The only change I made to this recipe was to add some lemon zest (I just hate to waste that lovely umami flavor when I’m using a lemon anyway).

What’s GOOD: so tender and tasty. And I just loved how the herby mayo tasted. And I have quite a bit leftover – not sure what I’ll use it for as it won’t keep for very long with fresh cilantro in it. It would be lovely on green salad, I think. Kind of like ranch dressing, but not.

What’s NOT: only that there’s a bit of prep here, but none of it was difficult.

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